Dragon Age: Inquisition is not a Direct Sequel to DA2

Anyone paying attention to the Dragon Age series may have noticed that EA and BioWare have dropped the number ’3′ from the title of Dragon Age: Inquisition.

The reason for this is because the developers want to drive home the idea that it isn’t a linear follow-up to Dragon Age 2, in the same way that the aforementioned game wasn’t a follow-up to the first title.

Speaking to IGN, EA Labels boss Frank Gibeau said that the change reflects the way they’re treating the Dragon Age franchise.

“We felt like we wanted to bring more attention to the word Inquisition, because that’s more the story arc of what it’s like. There’s a whole bunch of gameplay and features and big story choices related to how you go through this Inquisition that happens in the world,” said Gibeau.

“It’s a tactical marketing decision. There wasn’t anything that strategic about it, to be blunt,” he added.

“We just wanted to draw more attention to the fact that Inquisition is an all-new chapter inside of the Dragon Age universe, as opposed to people expecting a follow-on to Dragon Age 1 and 2 in a literal, linear sense.”

Fans will be able to rally up in Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014, when it’s released for the PC, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, and Xbox One. It’s powered by DICE’s Frostbite 3 engine.

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Don’t care, its Bioware, they’ll screw it up some how. I will not be a part of the video game version of supporting a friend’s drug habit. The only way they’ll learn is through tough love, and I have no faith in this company anymore.

Game quality aside, this is already smelling of rot to me. “It’s a tactical marketing decision.” Is completely right – they want to have a game set in the universe (i.e. market an established IP – AKA use the brand) but not have to deal with as many story continuity issues would be my guess. This comes off as cheap writing to me, and makes it easier to produce in a shorter time period.

They could call it The Elder Scrolls: Dragon Age, this is probably the only way they are going to get any credibility these days with a simple name change.

We are not naive, the game is still a squeal, just because they drop the 3 one year before the release does not mean development has suddenly changed course. Bioware has severely damaged two of it’s greatest franchises in recent years, their is no quick fix or PR stunt to remedy this, only releasing a quality game will make a difference.

Either way no purchase for me, Bioware screwed me over one too many times.

Hemlock3630

On June 24, 2013 at 11:10 am

I’m perfectly fine with them dropping the ‘III’ designation….why? It’s NOT a direct sequel.

If they did have ‘III’ in the title, people would be freaking out that the main protagonist wasn’t Hawke (or possibly the Warden. (like many did for DA2) DA2 would have been much better served (and better marketed) by being called something else, in line of Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Awakenings, Dragon Age: Inquistion….dropping the ‘III’ designation brings it back in line to the naming convention for the original game.

To me the ‘III’ designation would indicate that the game would be a contiuation of the storyline from the previous chapters, instead the game looks to be a new chapter, new plot line, with some threads carried over (with stuff from the books and comics possibly fillers for some of the story)….So far I have enjoyed that the Dragon Age universe is about the world with less emphasis on one protagonist, instead of following the story of one character through the world….. It makes sense in the series Mass Effect to have 1, 2, 3 designation since it’s the three chapters of Shepard’s story…..the same numbering schematic doesn’t make sense for the DA series.

And personally, I’m looking forward to this game. Bioware’s DA team is not the same team that gave us ME.

sep

On June 24, 2013 at 1:29 pm

It’s sad how it went from, any news regarding Bioware would make me so excited, to anything from them almost makes me want to skip the entire article.

You are quite right Hemlock3630 it is a different team, unfortunately though they are the very same team that gave us the piece of crap called Dragon Age 2.

Also do not try to convince any of us that the game was at all good. To this day it has a very bad metascore and performed so atrociously that they had to cancel their later DLC’s plans and essentially drop the III in favour of a suffix so the franchise would no longer be associated with the embarrassing second installment.

I think you should be more cautious and wait and see, but… it is your money to waste.

“Marketing decision” says it all. They desperately want people to give this one a chance even though they delivered a major dud the last time, but a mere difference in a name hardly fills me with confidence. It’s still being made by the same people that made the last one, and these were the same people that chose denial or blaming people for having expectations that were “too high” as the response to the criticism. Throw in that this was what happened with ME3, and I genuinely have doubts whether BioWare can be trusted to learn anything and actually listen to criticism. Going forward, they’ll talk about how this game will take what people liked from the last two games and somehow find this great blend, but I’ve had two games in a row (DA2 and ME3) that didn’t even come close to delivering on the hype that BioWare itself generated. I’ve been burned twice because BioWare asked me to trust them based on prior good performance, but they used that up.

Really looking forward to DA:I and glad it is on a long development cycle. Unlike the extremely short one DA2 had. I liked DA2, not love it like DA:Origin but it showed the short development cycle it had. It had some decent elements to it but never ever should have been called DA2.

Hemlock3630

On June 24, 2013 at 3:25 pm

No, DA2 should never have been called DA2…..should have stuck with the naming convention from Dragon Age:Origins. The books follow the same sort of naming convention. Calling it DA2 made people think that it was going to be a ‘pick up where you left off maybe with a time lag’ from DA:O, akin to what was done with Mass Effect.

And sorry Aedelric that you didn’t enjoy DA2. I did, even with it’s flaws (which were numerous). It was still enjoyable. Great game? No. But did it deserve the level of hatred it got? IMHO no. Going in, due to the fact you are playing through the past and the use of a framed narrative….I had an idea of what to expect from the culmination of the plotline and that the general outcome was set in stone.

I am also glad that DA:I is on a long development cycle. DA2 really suffered from being ‘rushed’.

Wise, I think. It’s what I’ve been arguing they should have done with DA II. Just stuck with a sub-title, no numbers. It wasn’t really a direct sequel, and putting a “II” implies some kind of continuity and I think gives people expectations, not unreasonably so, of what to expect. I maintain that DA II wasn’t a *bad* game. But it wasn’t up to the quality I expected after DA: Origins, or from Bioware for that matter. Had that been the first or second offering from a young studio I would have had the same complaints, but been much more forgiving and thought “Alright, solid first showing, let’s see what you learned from it.”

So yeah, getting rid of numbers and staying with descriptive sub-titles makes much more sense for them.

JamesX

On July 3, 2013 at 3:24 pm

At least they didn’t name it like “Mass Effect: With Dragons” which is what DA2 should have been.

And what exactly is their play on words? Not a “direct” sequal but deals with the fallout caused by the 2nd game?

Isn’t that what a Sequel is? Or they are making a fine distinction between “direct sequel” to “semi-related sequel”?

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